


keep the city swinging

by cheloniidae



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Pre-Canon, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 03:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20594123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheloniidae/pseuds/cheloniidae
Summary: “Those cats made Vegas swing," Benny tells House, the day he signs over his tribe's future with a name ripped from history books. “I’m following their footsteps.”He doesn’t give a fuck about Vegas, and the Old World slang makes him want to crawl out of his skin, but it’s what House wants to hear. He’d say anything to keep his tribe here, with food and medicine and soft mattresses under a solid roof. A chance like this won’t come again.(Or: Benny and House, over the years.)





	keep the city swinging

**Author's Note:**

> Repost of a deleted fic.

**five.**

Every other Wednesday, the same song and dance. A Securitron rolls up to the doors of the Tops, and it waits there while one Chairman sends another to send another to get Benny, and Benny makes his way down just slowly enough to still seem cool. By the black-and-white of the Chairmen’s contract, House’s robots can’t enter the Tops without its boss’s say-so. Benny always gives it, but House insists a standing invite would violate the principle of the thing. He’s as big on sticking to his word as any old-school Boot Rider.

Some days the Securitron’s screen shows a policeman; others, it shows a cowboy. Today is the second kind. “Howdy, Bugs,” Victor says, bobbing forward like he’s tipping a hat. The first thing he ever said to Benny was, _If it ain’t ol’ Bugsy back with the living._ Benny’s seen pictures of Old Vegas from the way-way-back, before House even bought the Lucky 38, and all of ‘em have Vegas Vic, lit in neon, winking down at the tourists outside the Pioneer Club. They’re both dressed in pieces of House’s city-that-was. “The boss wants to talk to you,” says Victor.

“Roll inside, baby. I always got time to jaw with the overboss.”

Heads turn as Benny leads Victor through the casino floor. He relishes it. On paper, the heads of the Three Families are equals, but everybody knows there’s only one of ‘em who House visits like clockwork, and it ain’t Nero or Marjorie.

House himself only shows up once they’re alone. Victor’s face flickers dark, and when it lights up again, House is smirking green. Most weeks they take the presidential, but it’s booked solid for the next two months, so Benny’s hosting this little soiree in his own suite. He goes to fix himself a cocktail, and as he pours the mezcal, he hears House shuffling cards. Only one deck, by the sound of it.

Gin was last week, so it’ll be something else tonight. Poker, sixty-six, some other game Benny’s never heard of. They play with chips from the Lucky 38, and whoever has more at the end of the night wins. Their wagers are more interesting than caps: a spot at the top of Michael Angelo’s list, a record signed by Ol’ Blue Eyes himself. Last time, Benny put up a trinket from Old Vegas — a snow globe of the Strip, with a music box inside that plinked out a halting, off-key rendition of Blue Moon — and House got as serious as a sit-down with Kimball.

(Benny should’ve expected that. The overboss loves Vegas down to his core. Not like a person loves a person, but like Benny's old man loved the Lord. He’d burn himself on the city’s altar, if he thought that would bring Old Vegas back.)

“What’s the game?” Benny asks, sitting across from House. His glass clinks against the polished wood of the table.

“I’m rather in the mood for Bluff.”

That’s new. “How’s that fair, baby? You can see me, and I can’t see you.”

“Consider it an opportunity to work on concealing your many tells.” House puts down the cards while Benny squawks indignation. A claw gestures at Benny’s drink. “Is that a Devil’s Sunrise? I was quite fond of those, when I could imbibe.”

Benny already guessed that. He found the recipe in one of House’s old books, and it had a star drawn next to it, experiments and substitutions written in the margins. “It’s ring-a-ding.” Benny takes a sip, pacing himself. Game nights are two-drink nights. The last time he got more than a little buzzed, House wiped the floor with him. “The ghouls down at the Wrangler didn’t catch the memo about gasoline, by the way.”

“Is that what you believe me to be?”

“You ain’t a computer — says you, anyways — and you were in Vegas before the War. How else are you still kicking?”

“Oh, surely you’ve more imagination than a mere two possibilities,” House chides, but he ain’t really disappointed. The warmth in his voice tips his hand. “I’ll eliminate one answer for you: I didn’t survive through ghoulification.”

“How about the real answer?”

“Come now, must you be so blunt? The joy of a puzzle lies in solving it. I wouldn’t deprive you of that.”

  
**one.**

House chooses the meeting place: the conference room of the biggest suite in the Tops. Zip would’ve expected to go to the boss, not the other way around, but House’s casino is off-limits to anyone with a pulse. He says he owned it before the War. Zip’s met enough ghouls to know he might not be full of shit. (He calls bullshit on House’s claims that he saved the Mojave from the bombs, but only inside his head, where House can’t hear.)

They have to raise their voices over the din of saws and hammers and drills, but no place in the casino — in all of New Vegas — is any quieter. The renovations are on a tight schedule. There’s an army coming soon, and unlike the Khans, this army is too big for the Three Families plus House’s robots to run off. Instead of picking a fight he can’t win, House is planning to welcome the NCR’s soldiers with the finest fucking hospitality the Mojave can offer. If you can’t take what you want, convince them they want to give it to you. Zip respects that.

House slides the contract across the table with a metal pincer-hand. “The other Families required it to be read aloud, but I understand that isn’t the case here?”

“That’s right,” says Zip. He has to admit it: his old man was right about reading being handy, even though this isn’t the kind Nazario had in mind. It’s less about saving his soul, more about saving his stomach.

House watches him read with the same expression he always wears: a half-smirk, one eyebrow raised. That picture is all Zip’s seen of his new boss since he tracked down a Securitron, Bingo’s blood fresh on his knife, and told it his tribe was in. A Boot Rider doesn’t make deals without looking somebody in the eye, but Zip's not a Boot Rider anymore. There are no Boot Riders anymore. A name is a small price to pay, he tells himself.

It’s been two weeks since he had to wonder where his next meal is coming from. A name _is_ a small price to pay. The others don’t see that yet, but they’ll come around. He’ll hold their heads under the wine ‘til they see it’s sweeter than water.

He signs over his tribe’s future with a flourish and a name ripped from history books, and he slides the contract back to House.

“Benjamin Lansky,” House reads. He chuckles warmly. “Siegel and Meyer, I presume?”

“Those cats made Vegas swing, baby. I’m following their footsteps.” He doesn’t give a fuck about Vegas, and the Old World slang makes him want to crawl out of his skin, but it’s what House wants to hear. He’d say anything to keep his tribe here, with food and medicine and soft mattresses under a solid roof. A chance like this won’t come again. Change is coming to the Mojave, whether the Boot Riders like it or not, and he’ll be fucked if he lets them end up like the Khans.

“I see you’ve been studying your history,” says House. “You have a bright future ahead of you, Benjamin. And, thanks to your efforts, so do your fellow Chairmen.”

They’re gonna remember him as the chief who brought them out of the desert and into the promised land. “Call me Benny,” he says.

  
**two.**

Dozens of Securitrons light up the desert night, turning Highway 582 into a river of stars. All the Chairmen, White Gloves, and Omertas who aren’t too old, too young, or too sick to march follow them. Benny is at the head of the formation, just behind a Securitron, and its wheels kick dust from the road into the cool night air. The Mojave greets him with all the cruel enthusiasm of a jilted lover, getting in his hair and his eyes and his lungs. After this deal is done, Benny’s through walking the desert. It’s gonna be hot showers and air conditioning and room service, and he’ll leave behind the taste of dust like a snake leaves its skin.

Jude — Swank, now — is at Benny’s side, exactly where he should be, and the rest of the Chairmen follow behind. They keep their distance from the other tribes. Other Families, Benny corrects himself.

The big man let them trade their wingtips for sturdy boots, but he wouldn’t budge on the suits and ties. They must look like a parade of Old World ghosts. Most of the suits blend into the night, black and grey and tan, but not Benny’s. His is black-and-white plaid, like the pictures of the man he took his name from. A Securitron dropped it off at the Tops the day after he signed his contract. House even left a note inside the box: _Not Siegel’s original, but it will do._

“The Slither Kin better not try anything,” Swank says, five fucking feet from a Securitron.

“They ain’t here,” Benny says. And, for the Securitron, he adds, “Sounds to me you need your dimmers checked, baby.”

Swank snorts. Benny smacks his arm, motions with his head towards the robot.

Understanding dawns on Swank’s face slower than a winter sunrise. Christ, he’s lucky Benny likes him for more than his brains. “Right,” Swank says, unconvincingly. “I must be coo-coo.”

Swank was always a shit liar (a point of pride for a Boot Rider), but it should be enough for House. The old man is so easy to play, Benny can’t help liking him. Benny’s own suit is proof of that. Say a few pretty words about making Vegas what it used to be, and House delivers something special, just for him. House gets hope for Vegas; Benny’s tribe — Family, he corrects himself again — gets a life better than poking around ruins for scraps. Benny thinks he’s getting the better end of the deal, all things considered.

They reach Hoover Dam before dawn. A group of Securitrons is waiting for them, keeping watch, and they stand silent and still as the Families pass. The darkness makes the dam loom larger, its basin dropping away into empty, endless black. Hard to believe humans built anything this massive. The Colorado roars around them, an animal the Old World caught and tamed and harnessed.

They aren’t keeping the Dam, House explained before the march. The NCR is gonna claim it no matter what the Families do; the only question is how much it’ll cost them. They can fight the Three Families and leave themselves easy prey for the Legion, or they can strike a deal. According to House, there’s only one way this coin toss can land.

By the next afternoon, the Strip has a treaty, all the water and power it needs, and its first customers.

House is more than a relic with a robot army and a fetish for an Old World city. He’s a relic with a robot army and a fetish for an Old World city who Benny can learn from.

  
**three.**

“He’s a ghoul,” Swank says, lying on Benny’s bed, cigarette between his fingers. “Gotta be.”

Benny buttons up his shirt, and the mirror shows him Swank admiring the view. Goddamn shame he has a meeting this early. “Must be one ugly ghoul, if he ain’t willing to show his mug around Vegas.”

Swank rolls his eyes at the slang. They’ve had this argument more than once: _House can’t hear us,_ Swank will say, and Benny will answer with a leer and an _If he could, we’d have to charge him for the show,_ and then Swank will toss a pillow in his direction. But Swank must not be in the mood for that routine, because he just asks, “There any that aren’t?”

“You tell me.” Benny chooses today’s tie. Wearing something like this would’ve been suicide in the desert; someone gets a hold of it, and goodbye, breathing. “Seemed you were making eyes at—”

“The only thing I wanted her to open was her wallet. You made it my job to ‘charm ‘em with the Chairman experience.’”

“And don’t I regret it.” Benny tells his instincts to shut up, and he ties the tie just as tight as the men from House’s holotapes. He examines the knot in the mirror. Sharp enough for a day in the casino, but not sharp enough for the first official meeting of the New Vegas City Commission. Marjorie is smug enough without giving her another reason to be, and Benny wants Nero — _fuck_ Nero — to look like a wasteland drifter next to him.

As Benny undoes the knot, Swank asks, “Changed your mind?”

Benny shakes his head. “Told you, I don’t got time.” He ties it slower, more careful, and checks it again. Still not good enough.

“C’mon, Zip, so what if your tie—”

“That ain’t my name, dig?”

“You weren’t complaining earlier.”

Swank’s grinning, but Benny isn’t. “That ain’t my name,” he repeats, putting on his boss voice. Benny won’t let anybody make House doubt the Family’s commitment to the new life. If that means dealing with a bit of hurt in Swank’s eyes, he can live with that. He gets the tie right this time, and when he slips his suit jacket on, the person staring back at him from the mirror belongs in Vegas. A Chairman, through and through. Not a grain of desert sand in him. “Don’t forget where we are,” he warns, and then he’s out the door.

The warning’s for himself as much as Swank. The nights make it too easy. Swank calls something after him, but Benny closes the door behind him, and it’s lost in the walls of the Tops.

  
**four.**

“That’s why you had me bring the cards,” Benny says. “So I can’t say you’re cheating.”

It’s the middle of the afternoon, and Benny’s being robbed blind in his own casino. House started their Blackjack game with two hundred chips; half an hour later, he’s turned it into an even three. House pulls the twin stacks of tens towards himself, while Benny swipes his cards — a soft nineteen against Benny’s hard eighteen — and moves them to the growing discard pile.

“Given that I’m not cheating, which I assure you is the case, how do you explain my success?”

Benny needs to buy himself time to figure this out. “Break five hundred, and I’ll tell you.”

“That’s a rather one-sided wager, you realize?”

“You offering me something if you run out of chips?”

“That depends entirely upon what you ask for... though you oughtn’t get your hopes up about my losing. In my youth, I led a Blackjack team whose successes saw us banned from five casinos on the Strip. Two of which I would later come to own, ironically enough.”

“They banned you and you bought ‘em,” Benny says, impressed by the level of spite.

“That wasn’t a motivating factor,” House says, stern enough that Benny can tell he touched a nerve. “But I will admit, the look on a certain floor manager’s face as he realized he’d attempted to throw the new owner out into the street was… gratifying.”

“I’ll bet it was.”

“Speaking of bets, might we return to the topic at hand?”

“The Chairmen get first pick of booze for a month.” The casinos are supposed to work things out for themselves eventually, make their own supply deals, but it’s only been two months since their first customers walked through the doors. For now, House is the only thing stocking the bars.

“You have a deal. A deal which you won’t win, mind you, but a deal nonetheless.”

After five more hands, House is up another thirty chips, and Benny hits the cut card. He shuffles the deck slowly, but not so slow that House can catch him stalling. At this rate, the old man will win the wager, and Benny still doesn’t have the answer he promised. He needs to slow this game down, now. “The rules don’t say where the cut card has to go, do they?”

“Traditionally, the dealer places it in the lower third of the deck.”

“But it ain’t in the rules.”

“Not as such, no.”

The cut card is finally good for something: buying Benny some time. He’s never seen the point of it. Why not play the whole deck?

The answer smacks him over the head.

Benny thinks back over the game. House’s bets get more confident as the deck shrinks, don’t they? Now that he sees what’s happening, he’s almost embarrassed he couldn’t see it from the start. “Then it's going here,” he says, and sets the cut card aside.

“How unconventional.”

“Gotta roll with the times, hey? Convention is nowheresville.”

After every hand, Benny re-shuffles the deck. House starts going bust more often than not, until he’s down to three hundred caps, then two-fifty. Benny’s palms start sweating. He didn’t plan for the consequences of beating the head honcho of the Strip at his own game. He’s never seen House lose before, doesn’t know what reaction to expect. Benny doubts he’ll react as bad as Bingo always did, but…

Benny won’t go back to the desert. He _can’t_ go back to the desert.

“I hope you aren’t planning to call off our wager,” House says, when Benny hesitates too obviously. “I’m rather enjoying this.”

“You like being fifty caps in the red?” Benny asks, because his goddamn mouth never learned when to stop running. “I got a slot machine on the floor with your name on it, if losing’s what you’re after.”

“One of my employees thoroughly exceeded my expectations. I’d hardly call that losing.”

“You were testing me,” Benny realizes.

“I certainly wasn’t playing to earn caps.”

Wait a minute. _Exceeded expectations._ “You didn’t think I could figure it out?”

House waves off Benny’s indignation. “If I thought so poorly of you, would I have wasted my time coming here? My projections gave you a seventy-eight percent chance of realizing that I was counting cards. They didn’t, however, give me the odds of you turning the odds against _me_. I underestimated you.”

All the tension leaks out of Benny, leaving him lightheaded, drunk off relief. He didn’t wreck his Family’s chances of staying in Vegas. He impressed House, and that can only mean good things for the Chairmen. “What can I say, baby?” For once, the slang comes out natural, without him having to try. “I’m a player.”

“Indeed you are. I ought to have given you more credit from the start, given the creativity you showed in dealing with your... _intransigent_ predecessor.”

Benny’s easy grin vanishes faster than a rube’s wallet dropped on a casino floor. His fingers tighten around the king of diamonds in his hand, creasing the cardboard. Looking people in the eye, keeping your word, fighting fair— that was what separated the Boot Riders from scum like the Slither Kin. The Chairmen would throw him out of the Family if they found out. Assuming they even let him out of the Tops. “You’re talking crazy-talk,” he says.

“You needn’t try to hide it from me. Firstly, you've already failed, and secondly, unlike your associates, I’ve an appreciation for pragmatism. You and I are of a different stripe, don’t you see? In all games, there are those who play the odds and those who make them. Vegas dines on the former. It belongs to the latter.”

“What happened with me and Bingo wasn’t a game.”

“Oh, but it was. What defines a game? The set of rules which differentiate winners from losers. Of the two of you, it’s quite clear who the winner is, isn’t it? He’s the one still breathing.”

“I had to beat him.” Benny finds himself rambling, justifying to House like he would to Swank, and he can’t stop. “You saw Bingo. The guy was as big as a mountain and just as stupid. He didn’t understand what he was turning down. Nobody did. I kept thinking, if I lost, that was it. Some other tribe would take our place, and we’d be stuck in the desert forever, living off scraps like the Khans. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to do it.”

“As I said, you made your own odds. You should be very proud. This casino belongs to the Chairmen not by the grace of fortune, but because you rigged that game.”

Benny’s lucky lighter sits heavy in his suit pocket, nestled next to Nazario’s pistol. In the Mojave days, everybody had something they thought was lucky: Swank’s snake skull, Tommy’s Old World dime. Luck mattered when you were at the mercy of a desert that had none; it made the difference between seeing another sunrise or being buried under sand. But the Boot Riders are over, and Vegas is where Benny belongs. “Luck is for losers,” he says.

“An apt summary.” House gestures to the cards. “Shall we continue? I believe our wager isn’t over, yet.”

“Full speed ahead, baby.” Benny flips his top card over. “Dealer shows ten.”

  
**six.**

In the desert, sunset meant going from one pack of dangers to another. The sun took the heat to bed, but it took the light with it, and anybody who wasn’t safe at camp traded the risk of heatstroke for the risk of not seeing the Deathclaw ten feet in front of ‘em. (Meant other things, too, that Benny doesn’t think about. The old songs, the warmth of a campfire, the gnawing in his stomach that promised he’d go to sleep hungry.)

In Vegas, sunset means the city’s about to rise.

One by one, the neighboring casinos wink on. The dying light on the horizon knows it’s outclassed, and it beats feet to the west like a greenhorn gambler trying to outrun collection. Benny presses his palm against the cool glass of his penthouse window, drinking in the sight like champagne. The only bad thing about the view is that the Tops is missing. He wonders what it looks like from up high.

He doesn’t have to just wonder like some clueless crumb, though, does he? There’s somebody who has the answer. Benny trades the window for his terminal, and he types out a message.

The next morning, there’s an envelope waiting for him at the front desk. “A Sam dropped it off at the door an hour ago,” Swank says. He doesn’t need to say who it’s from; there’s only one cat on the Strip who sends mail by Securitron. Benny catches himself reaching for a knife he doesn’t carry anymore — if Swank notices, his face wisely stays quiet about it — and he opens the envelope with an index finger.

Photos of the Strip. Five of them, glossy and crisp, from somewhere so high it can only be the Lucky 38. The first shows the sun on the horizon; the next, judging by the change in light (some desert skills still come in handy), is half an hour later; the next is a half an hour after that. At night, the Strip turns the world upside down: black sky above the horizon, a sea of stars below. And in the middle of that sea, shining to beat them all, is the Tops. Benny goes to run his finger along the photo, then decides it ain’t worth risking a smudge.

“Must be some pictures, getting you that worked up,” Swank says. “What is it?”

Benny lays the stop-motion sunset on the desk like a royal flush. “It’s _ours_, is what it is.”

Swank whistles, low and appreciative. “Ring-a-ding-ding. Ain’t that a sight.”

  
**seven.**

“I’ve a task for you.”

“Hit me, baby.”

“A Legion spy by the name of Vulpes Inculta will be arriving on the Strip in one week’s time. You’re going to speak with him.”

“What do you want me to say? Welcome to Vegas, hail Caesar, try not to get any crosses on the carpet?”

“Nothing of the sort. It’s vital he remains unaware of the fact that we know his true identity. If he suspects that you believe him to be anything more than a simple tourist, the entire exercise will be rendered pointless.”

“And what exercise is that?”

“In a word? Disinformation.”

“From my lips to Baldie’s ears.”

“Precisely.”

“The creep won’t think it’s suspicious, me walking up to a nobody?”

“He certainly would, which is why you won’t approach him. Make yourself available in the bar at the Aces, and he’ll come to you. You’re one of the most powerful men in New Vegas. Moreover, he has every reason to believe that you know more about me than any living human. He won’t be able to resist trying to get information from you.”

“Do I?”

“Do you what?”

“Know more about you than anyone.”

A pause longer than the list of Omertas banned from the Tops, and House says, “I suppose you do.”

  
**eight.**

Benny starts tonight’s game with dried blood on his split knuckles. House doesn’t notice, or if he does, he keeps that card face-down. The whole Mojave’s tenser than a Vault City virgin at Gomorrah. The Chairmen are supposed to be unflappable, the definition of cool, but the looming all-out brawl for Hoover Dam’s got some of ‘em ready to bolt for the desert sunset. The problem with nomads, Benny thinks, like he never was one. Like he can’t shed the suit and be one again.

Most of the Family remembers Bingo well enough to keep their mouths shut about leaving. Sometimes, they need a reminder.

House wins the next hand, and the one after that. Benny barely notices. He’s drinking too much and too fast. His mind isn’t on the cards; it’s on the Dam, on what’ll happen if the wind blows the wrong way. The Families, the Securitrons— they don’t got enough muscle to hold back Baldie’s creeps. Those roaches will rip out the neon, redecorate with fire and crosses. The Chairmen don’t have to be here, when that goes down. They don’t.

Benny didn’t beat the shit out of Tony for being wrong. He beat the shit out of him for being too goddamn right.

House finishes shuffling, and it's his turn to deal. “This seems more akin to robbery than poker,” he says, flicking Benny’s cards to him across the table. He places his bet: a cool quarter of his chips, all of which were on Benny’s side of the table when they sat down to play. Benny’s close to bust, and he can’t make himself care. If the Chairmen leave, then what? Back to the Mojave? To empty stomachs and gecko skins and a camp you can smell for miles downwind? It’s a slower death than the ones in Caesar’s deck, but it ain’t any more merciful.

Benny peeks at his cards: five and seven of spades. “Raise,” he says, and pushes a stack of chips to the center of the table. Then, out of nowhere: “You knew the bombs were coming.”

House calls, then deals out the flop. King of diamonds, jack of clubs, six of spades. “For twelve years, as you’re well aware.”

“Why stay? Big leaguer like you, you could’ve got a place in any vault you wanted. Cushy digs, the works. Raise.”

“My remaining in Vegas was never in question. Call.” House makes it sound simple, easy, even though Benny knows the crazy bastard almost died for it. House said as much himself. He sets an eight of spades face-up on the table, and he adds, calmly, “According to my projections, there is a nineteen-point-one-two percent chance that Hoover Dam will fall, and Vegas with it.”

One in five, Caesar busts up Vegas. One in five, he takes the Chairmen. One in five, Benny gets tied to a cross for twisted creeps to point and laugh at. “You can’t swing those odds? Check.”

“Check. Are you under the impression that I haven’t? Without my interference, the Legion’s chance of victory would stand at fifty-one percent. I’ve done all I can to ensure a favorable outcome.” On the last word, House lays down the river: nine of spades.

Benny shows his straight flush, and he takes the pot. No way those cards turned up fair. “When you run a scam, boss, you're supposed to make the chips flow the other direction. Easy mistake, I know.”

“I’m simply evening the field, given your performance thus far.”

“Guess I’m on tilt,” Benny admits, grudgingly.

“On tilt? You’re practically vertical. Had you been paying any attention, you'd have noticed how I cut the deck.” House sweeps Benny’s cards into the discard pile with a clean motion of his claw. “The Chairmen aren’t having second thoughts about remaining on the Strip,” he says, casual as smalltalk about the weather.

It’s a half-question with only one right answer. Benny touches his stinging knuckles. “We ain’t going nowhere, baby.” One in five, he thinks. He don’t know if he’s lying. If Benny had the same chance House did, a cushy landing—

Something in him twists at the idea of skipping town. Something more than the pain of giving up caps and hot showers and a full stomach.

After the game, Benny takes a stroll down the Strip. He leaves his muscle behind. He’s as safe here, surrounded by cameras and Securitrons, as he is anywhere in the Tops. The crowds are thinner than usual; Vegas gets half its business from soldiers on leave, and they’re all in one bar or another, drinking to forget where they aren’t and where their pals are. Even without them, the Strip hums with life, with footsteps, with the music drifting from the casinos. Dino’s voice weaves through the air. _They say it was better in oh so many ways..._

Neon paints the white of Benny’s checkered suit; the reds and yellows shift and shimmer like a sign come to life. Nothing like the ruins he strolled into four years ago. He built the city, and the city built him, suits and slang and a name ripped from its history. Vegas is shining for him, swinging like a star on a string. He can’t walk away from those lights. Can’t let ‘em go dark. It was never in question, House said. It ain’t for Benny, either.

  
**nine.**

Benny leads a police-faced ‘tron through a crowd of California patriots — drunk off too many Hanlon Dynamite cocktails, stumbling over another off-key rendition of their national anthem — and the throng parts like butter under a hot knife. Three days since Caesar and his goons got kicked back across the river. Three days, and the celebration still ain’t losing steam. NCR blood won the battle, but Vegas pockets reap the reward: a river of caps, flowing as fierce as the Colorado. Nothing drives tourists to the bars and tables like the thrill of not getting crucified.

Up in the suite, Benny breaks out a surprise.

“Champagne?” House asks. He turns the bottle, examining the label. “2051 Laurent-Perrier. This must be one of the last bottles in existence. How on Earth did you get your hands on it?”

Benny grins wide enough to break his face. He might already be a few sheets to the wind after celebrating with the boys downstairs. Closer to a full laundry basket, if he's being honest. “You forget, boss? The joy of a puzzle is solving it.”

“Touché. Turnabout is fair play, as the saying goes.”

Benny can’t see House’s expression — never has, never will — but he’s learned how to read the old man’s voice, and House doesn’t sound half as happy as he should. “Don’t be sore, baby. This is a night for celebrating! We won. Vegas is safe. Safe as—” Benny busts up laughing. He can’t help it. “Safe as House’s.”

House interrupts Benny’s laughter. “For a handful of years, until the next battle for Hoover Dam.”

“That’s tomorrow. This is tonight.” Benny claps the Securitron on what passes for a shoulder. “C’mon, old man, the city’s about to rise.” He half-leads, half-manhandles (‘tron-handles?) House over to the window. They look down at the city, and the city, their city, shines up at them.

“We’ve accomplished a great deal, you and I,” House says. “Little more than an echo of the Strip’s former glory, yet it still manages to impress.” House talks about Vegas like it’s his heart beating outside his body, all bruised tenderness. Always has. Benny never understood it before, but now he knows what it’s like to almost lose her. House _did_ lose her. Lost her for two centuries, but now he’s here — they’re here — putting her back together.

“We ain’t done yet.” Benny raises his glass. “To making our neon lady shine.”

House clinks their glasses together. Benny drinks for the both of them, and he loses at California Lowball, and the night's a gas.

  
**ten.**

House don’t go quiet all at once. He starts by missing one game, then two in a row, and before Benny knows it it’s been three months since a Securitron rolled through the doors of the Tops. He ain’t counting. Vegas is at his fingertips, all the action he could want, booze and broads in spades. A big-leaguer like him’s got better things to do than wait for an old square to come knocking.

The city spins on without House, a greased roulette wheel that’s outgrown its croupier. Benny’s the first to notice his absence, but he ain’t the last. Every Commission meeting (where House is always a no-show, these days), Marjorie asks if Benny’s heard anything. He hasn’t. Nero starts calling House Not-At-Home, and the name spreads through Vegas like any other disease to come out of Gomorrah.

Ain’t too long before Benny hears it out of a Chairman’s mouth. “You wanna be an Omerta that bad,” Benny snaps at him, “you can pack up and move in with ‘em.”

But even the finkiest clock is right twice a day, and the truth is, the Omertas ain’t wrong. Not about this. The robots come to take House’s cut of the profits, a cool thirty percent, and the old man doesn’t make a peep. A thought buzzes in Benny’s ears like the hum of neon, louder and louder. It says: Vegas deserves a leader who’s gonna lead.

He thinks about the view of the Tops from the Lucky 38. He makes his choice before he knows there’s a choice to make.

  
**eleven.**

A chip.

That’s why House vanished. He needs to find something the size of a poker chip in Old World ruins the size of a city, and he needs to find it before the next brawl for the Dam. That’s a caper if Benny ever heard one. Yes Man gives Benny more details than he needs, and the gist is House made simulations for predicting where the Chip wound up after the bombs dropped. He’s constantly refining ‘em, twenty-four seven. And his cut from the casinos, all of it, is going to salvagers. Half a million caps just this year. It ain’t even April.

Yes Man don’t know exactly what the chip does, but he says it’ll beef up the Securitrons. With the upgrades, Vegas can hold its own against the Legion, the NCR, anybody who tries to muscle in on it. Doesn’t matter who wins the next brawl; either way, Vegas has the strength to swoop in when the fighting’s done and take the Dam for itself. No more relying on a treaty for water and electricity. The neon will never go out; the wine will never stop flowing.

House might’ve gone quiet, but he never left. He’s still fighting for Vegas.

That means Benny’s really doing him a favor, swiping the city. House is too square to keep it swinging. Ain’t got the pizzaz, the style, the rhythm— and how can he, holed up inside the Lucky 38? Vegas needs to be led by somebody who can walk it, feel it. But he’ll never see that, and he’ll never let go. Not until somebody pries Vegas from his dead fingers.

The Chairmen deserve the Strip. They have everything House doesn’t, and when Benny gets his hands on the Platinum Chip, they’ll have everything House does.

  
**twelve.**

In the graveyard of a podunk nowheresville barely-counts-as-a-town called Goodsprings, Benny cashes out a courier with twin bullets from Maria. He looks them in the eye as he does it. What kind of fink shoots somebody without looking at ‘em?

The same kind who stabs his boss in the back, is what his Family would say, which is why not even Swank knows about Benny’s little trip into the desert. They’d try to stop him. He’d be branded a capital-R rat, drummed out of the Family, and they would never understand what they turned down. Once House is iced, though, they’ll have to come around. He’ll hold their heads under the wine ‘til they see it’s sweeter than water.

The old man won’t understand, either, but he’ll be too dead to care. As the Khans bury the courier in a shallow, unmarked grave, Benny thinks about the grave he’ll give House. This shindig is good enough for a nobody go-fer, but House deserves something stylish. Respect where due. The key to Vegas sits heavy in Benny’s suit pocket, and he wouldn’t have either of those without him.

**Author's Note:**

> > Courier: Tell me about Mr. House.
>> 
>> Benny: A good cat to swing with. Or was- 'til he stopped mewing.


End file.
